Stephen

Stephen is a 16-year-old boy from Nairobi, Kenya. I’ve known him through letters since he was about 12, when my in-laws sponsored his education as a Christmas gift to me and my husband. Both his parents died of AIDS sometime before 2009–he is one of an estimated 1,200,000 AIDS orphans in Kenya alone.

Stephen grew up in a slum of Nairobi called Dagoretti. He still lives there when he is not at boarding school. I wanted to find out more about where Stephen is from, so Karen Bohn, a volunteer with Friends of Ngong Road, the organization through which Stephen is sponsored, emailed me a photo:

She wrote:

“Stephen lives in Kawangware, one of the villages in Dagoretti, with his 54-year-old aunt and three cousins. It sounds as though everyone in the household is healthy, and that Stephen eats three meals a day when he is home, though not always the most balanced diet. The house is neatly arranged but it is noisy because it is near the main road. They buy and use borehole water (an open well), and use a pit latrine, which is available to all the people who live in their compound (small neighborhood within the ‘village’).

“The slum has dirt roads, which you probably saw from the photo turn into muck when it rains. There are better and worse areas of the slum, but as is typical in any slum in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is characterized by no access to water, sanitation, or electricity. That is starting to change, as I have seen more electricity each time I’ve been in Dagoretti, though it is hardly prevalent. There are many small businesses along the main roads, including food vendors, tailors, small ‘manufacturers’, used clothing stores, little convenience stores (and I mean little), etc. In some places, you’ll detect a noticeable stench. There are animals wandering around everywhere — goats, chickens, dogs — and I can’t imagine how they keep straight whose goat or chicken is whose.”

Dagoretti is where Stephen lives. But it’s not all of him. As Karen says, “His aunt says that Stephen helps out at home and does well at school, and is a hard worker.”

I’ll let him introduce himself. Here’s one of his letters:

Dear Jessica,

How are you? I hope you are fine. I am very excited because you wrote a letter to me and I received it.

I did my Kenya Certificate of Primary Education and I attained three-hundred and seventy-five from Jagiet Academy. With those marks, I went to a very good and interesting school called by the name Chinga Boys High School. [Go, Stephen!]

The school compound is very nice. It is surrounded with flowers all over, including the classes and the office. The food there is well-cooked and it is healthier. Not only that, I also participate in games such as football and athletics. The teachers are teaching well, such that one can understand clearly and easily.

Yours faithful,

Stephen

Stephen is always very formal, I’m sure because English is his second (or third?) language and he’s naturally polite. (He also might be thinking, What do I say to a woman in Illinois, USA?) Now that he’s in high school, my last letter to him had a lot of the questions I’d initially asked him when he was 12. I wanted to know if anything had changed. The remaining constant is football, which he usually mentions at least once.

Dear Jessica,

I hope you are fine. I would like to answer the questions that were in your letter.

My favorite sport is football. I play it at school when I am free. I like football because it exercises my body and makes my bones strong. My best friend is called Dender.

My hobby is drawing and taking care of animals. Where I live, I love the environment that surrounds us, also our country since I am proud to be a Kenyan. I live with my aunt, who is caring and hard-working. Her job is selling cosmetics.

My favorite subject is Physics and Biology. [At Chinga Boys School, a boarding school] we wake up at 5 in the morning and go to class where we have the preps until 6:30. We eat rice and beans and sometimes ugali, which will make us strong.

When I grow up I would like to be an engineer. I would like to travel outside my country to see what I have never seen.

Yours faithful,

Stephen

Very least of all, without my in-laws’ generosity and the people of Ngong Road, I would not have the experience of corresponding with a boy a world away. Most of all, without those people, Stephen would not have the opportunities he now does–to learn and, eventually, to see the world.

Jessica Null Vealitzek is the author of the coming-of-age novel The Rooms Are Filled. She contributes to PDXX Collective and Great New Books, and blogs at True STORIES.
Find her online at www.jessicavealitzek.com